


Hidden History

by EchoResonance



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:56:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The role of the Bookman is to record the parts of history that nobody else knows impartially and entirely so that what was hidden history may be known. But who decides what hidden history is, and what it is not? An impartial view is an incomplete view, and Lavi is starting to understand that the people are just as important as the events.<br/>(Laven Week, day four: A Moment in Time)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hidden History

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowcall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcall/gifts).



_One day they too will disappear from history._

Lavi bit his lip and looked out over the sea of people in the cafeteria, some laughing, some bickering, some eating more food than should be humanly possible, and his chest ached. He was the successor to Bookman, an unbiased and uninvolved scholar whose only role was to record hidden history. There was no place for him amongst the ranks of the Exorcists, the Finders, and all of the others who made up the Black Order. Truly he didn’t belong there, because he was nobody’s comrade. He was an observer. He sat on the sidelines and watched as war after war took place and humans killed humans for little reason other than because they were bored. He was above them, above the senseless killing and the stupid self-righteous, self-important speeches delivered every other day. He was Bookman Junior, and he was not the Black Order’s comrade. He wasn’t their friend. He wasn’t their family.

Well, he wasn’t supposed to be.

Yet the Order always gave him a sense of fulfillment and the feeling of being truly whole for the first time in his life. It had seemed to replace a part of himself he hadn’t realized was missing in his years prior to joining them with the Old Panda, and however hard he tried to remain separate, it just wasn’t possible. How could he stay detached with Lenalee’s welcoming smile every time he returned from a research mission? How could he keep his distance when watching everybody simultaneously hate and admire Yuu, the moody samurai? How could he maintain his cool composure with Allen shining with hope like a human sun everytime he saw him?

How could he be expected to keep himself separate from the people that welcomed him warmly and cared for him unconditionally? All these people, the courageous Exorcists and the brilliant scientists and the patient finders were all so incredibly unique and all so amazingly kind. Even Yuu was welcoming, in his own austere manner. At least, once you understood that that was just how he was and in no way reflected his personal feelings toward you. Lavi couldn’t just ignore the kindness he was shown, couldn’t ignore the excitement in Johnny’s eyes at the prospect of something silly as making a properly fitting coat for the newcomer.

For a time, he had tried. Really, he had done his best to be friendly and open without letting himself get drawn in. Without involving himself in a war that he had no place in. But with each passing day, it grew harder for him to tell if the smile he wore was fake or not, and eventually a time came when it was impossible for him to tell. The thing that scared him the most was that, because he wasn’t sure, he suspected that the smile had become genuine. That his friendly facade was no longer a facade because he had allowed himself to care about the people around him despite every rule he knew he was breaking by doing so.

Caring was scary. Especially when, as a Bookman, he knew that there would come a time when these people, his friends, would die, and they would vanish from history within a decade. Their names would not be in the story of the war that raged on between the Millennium Earl and the Black Order, nor would their relationships. Johnny’s stupid smile and his transparent emotions. Lenalee’s unwavering loyalty to her friends. Krory’s incredible knack for falling for the simplest of cons. Yuu’s unique ability of caring to the extreme while pretending not to care at all. Komui’s maddening inventions and his slave-driving attitude. Reever’s impatience with his superior and his incredible work ethic in spite of said superior. Allen’s strange and wonderful capacity for hope no matter how grim a situation, his fierce drive to protect not just civilians but his fellow Exorcists as well. One day they would all be forgotten.

“Oi, Lavi!” someone called from across the cafeteria.

He looked up and spotted Allen waving at him from beside a massive pile of dishes that seemed to have been licked clean. Lavi hesitated, then smirked at the boy and waved back, moving between the tables to join him.

“You know if you keep frowning like that, your face is gonna stick,” Allen teased as he sat down. “What’s wrong?”

Lavi blinked and glanced away.

“It’s nothing,” he said airily, waving a hand. “Just super important Bookman stuff, you probably wouldn’t understand.”

Allen’s eyebrow twitched, and Lavi’s smirk grew.

“If you can understand it, I doubt I’d have any trouble,” Allen said dryly. Lavi raised an eyebrow, but before he could respond something was propped on top of his head.

“Oi, Lenalee, I’m not an armrest!” he complained, reaching up to swat her arm aside. She laughed and slid into place beside him.

“When you guys are done, my brother wants to see you,” she said, smiling brightly at them. “He thinks he might have found more Innocence.”

Allen shifted his focus.

“Really?” he said curiously. “Where?”

Lenalee shrugged.

“I bet he’ll tell you himself when you go to see him,” she confided.

Lavi grinned and began gulping down his ramen.

“Well, we’d better get moving then, huh?” he said through a mouthful of noodles.

She smiled and then stood up again, bounding off to who-knows-where. Lavi looked after her, and then back at Allen, who was once more engrossed in what remained of his enormous meal. The ache in his heart returned, but with a different tinge to it now. It was a sort of poignant determination. These people would die, and the odds were high that they would die young. Lavi wanted to live his life like they did, fighting for what he cared about even if it meant risking his life. He would be the Bookman successor as well, documenting hidden history.

However, hidden history had plenty of interpretations. What people never saw were the soldiers lives during the wars, the way they interacted in their rare moments of peace. They never knew the relationships between the people that fought to protect their ideals, only that they fought together. This was the hidden history that meant something, the secrets nobody learned that everybody should know. The fact that soldiers weren’t just soldiers, but that they were their own sort of family, and that they were as human as anybody else. That they felt, that they loved and hated and played and fought with each other like any other human would, because they were still human. Few people were related by blood, yet they were all brothers and sisters, fathers, mothers, daughters and sons. They were all that annoying person down the street that kept everyone else awake at night with their noisy inventions in their garage, all that nice young neighbor who would take care of the cats and water the plants when they were away.

That was what nobody ever saw, the story that nobody ever told. The soldiers, no, the _families_ were erased from history time and time again. That was the hidden history that Lavi cared about. Lavi, the forty-ninth him, was as real as the other forty-eight hims, but he had something far more substantial to fight for than they had, something far more significant to record. The old man wouldn’t like where his heart had been moving, but it wasn’t a thing that could be easily swayed by the threat of leaving. Even if he was denounced as the successor to the Bookman title, even if he was forced away from the Order, he would take his experiences and his relationships with him, and he would not let them die. There was history to be recorded within the walls of the Black Order Headquarters, and he wanted it written.

He would _not_ let them disappear from history. They would not be names on the list of deceased, they would not be just a little more ink on paper, they would not be forgotten. They were the hidden history, and Lavi felt it was the duty of the Bookman Clan to record all hidden history. It was time for the role of Bookman to evolve. Because these people were his loved ones, and he’d never known the bonds formed behind the front lines, and he wanted everybody that found his records to know what he hadn’t. They might die young, but for the moment, they were alive and kicking and making their own history. He wouldn't let that go to waste. _He would not let them disappear_. They would be more than just a moment in time, a moment lost and forgotten. People like Allen needed to be remembered. That boy especially had such an incredible gift of hope that it could shine through generations, inspiring people long after he had gone. Lavi was sure of that, because something bright enough to give a Bookman a heart had the strength to glow forever.

Maybe, just maybe, Lavi could be the Bookman and an Exorcist.

 


End file.
